Lobsang Dorjee in prison uniform from his imprisonment in 2008. Photo- Kanyag Tsering.

DHARAMSHALA, Sept. 6: A monk from the Kirti monastery in the restive Ngaba town in Sichuan Province of occupied Tibet’s Amdo region has been sentenced to three years in jail on unknown charges after being held incommunicado for more than a year.

Lobsang Dorjee was sentenced on 3 September, following his detention since July 2018, according to Kanyag Tsering, a monk from the Dharamshala based Kirti Monastary . The 36-year-old was detained all of a sudden in the middle of the night from his monastic quarter until his sentencing earlier this month by the local Chinese police there.

While there is no information on the charges that saw him sentenced to three years in prison, Tibetan Center for Human Rights said it was earlier believed he had been detained for maintaining contacts with individuals living outside Tibet. “The exact charge for which he was convicted remains unknown although it is not uncommon for someone to be sentenced to three years on the charge of ’negligent disclosure of State secrets’ under Chinese Criminal Law,” the rights group said.

Dorjee hails from Chukle Gabma nomadic village and became a monk at a young age. He had earlier served two years’ sentence following his arrest in 2008.

TCHRD said it believes that, “Lobsang Dorjee’s unjust imprisonment is the result of ongoing systematic persecution of Tibetans for their political and religious beliefs and reiterates its call to the Chinese government to release him and other Tibetans immediately without conditions. The Chinese government must respect and guarantee the basic human rights enshrined in the national law and the international human rights law.”